Pilgrim
by Masu Trout
Summary: In which Red travels meets a legendary, disregards causality, and learns a little bit about death.  Oneshot, hinted RedxLeaf.


**This was written a while back, but it appears I've developed a terminal case of forgetting to upload things to my FFnet account. Whoops! Anyhow, this is a rather odd fic, but I had fun writing it and hopefully someone will enjoy reading it.**

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Red is sitting in a cave. Red has been sitting in a cave and Red will be sitting in a cave. Pick one, maybe, but all three are true.

It's just causality, and logical progression doesn't mean much to him anymore. Time doesn't mean much to him anymore, either. Because Red has come unstuck.

* * *

><p>Red is eighteen and wandering through Ilex Forest in search of a legendary Pokémon.<p>

Before this happened, before he learned to appreciate that things always were and stopped caring so much why, he would have called this the point when he first became unstuck in time. Now, he knows that he has always been unstuck, that the past and the future are inseparable. But, for the sake of clarity in the minds of four-dimensional beings, say that this is the catalyst.

Red finds his legendary.

It is not like the others he's encountered. Mewtwo was a terrifying fighter and the three birds were predators in the truest sense of the word. Fierce, all four of them. This one is pale, fairylike, and waifish, like something out of a children's cartoon.

"Celebi?" it chimes as it turns toward Red.

"Hello," he responds, choked up and nervous. "I want to change the past. Can you do that for me?"

There is a long pause, and then the guardian of the forest shakes its head sadly.

"Please," Red says, raw and aching with longing. "I just want to see her again. Please."

It gives him a slow, pitying look and then nods reluctantly.

"Thank you," Red whispers, overwhelmed and unable to believe that this is actually happening, that maybe this will really work—

Celebi reaches out a pale green paw, and Red takes it.

* * *

><p>Red is six years old, the same age as Leaf and Blue. It is the height of summer and the Pallet Town is shimmering in the midday heat.<p>

The three friends are sitting on Leaf's porch, eating popsicles carefully liberated from Red's freezer. (Well, popsicle soup by now, but none of them particularly care.) Before breakfast they were pirates, but they decided to be ninjas when lunch rolled around. Now, tongues stained in rainbow colors and fingers stuck together with sugar and sweat, they have decided to be Pokémon trainers.

"What're you gonna start out with?" Leaf asks, looking at Blue.

"Gramps promised me he'd get me an Eevee when I turned ten, straight from Cerulean. It's going to be the best fighter ever!" Blue puffs out his chest, grinning wildly, and both Leaf and Red grumble about how unfair it is, having a Grandpa who's a Pokémon Professor.

"What about you, Red?" Leaf looks over at him, eyes wide.

"I don't know," he says slowly. He doesn't really have a favorite Pokémon, and he's not quite good at imagining. Not like Blue and Leaf, at least, who'll go on for hours if he gives them half a chance. "Probably I'll just catch a Pidgey or something."

"A Pidgey?" Leaf shrieks, sounding scandalized. "There's got to be something better than that!"

He's embarrassed, knows he sounds silly and wishing he'd never spoken up at all. A moment later, though, Leaf declares that her first Pokémon will be a Mew, and they spend the rest of the afternoon teasing her for wanting a Pokémon that doesn't even exist.

(Actually, it does, the-Red-in-the-cave thinks. He saw it once while hunting for Clefairy in the peaks of Mount Moon. It was a beautiful creature, to be sure, but he's glad he chose Pikachu for his starter.)

* * *

><p>Red is fifty-five, grey-haired, and doesn't live in a cave anymore. He's got a nice little house in Viridian City, a quaint thing with a white picket fence. He lives alone, but Blue visits about as often as his position as a member of the Elite Four will allow.<p>

Red wishes Blue were visiting right now, because he has a problem. Pikachu is dying.

(He knows this moment, has lived it a hundred-thousand times since he first met Celebi, but it _hurts_, dammit. It always hurts.)

He knows, objectively, that Pikachu shouldn't have lived even this long. His friend's ears are tipped with white and it's been years since he powered a light bulb, let alone a decent thunderbolt. The average lifespan of his species is twenty years, and Pikachu is in his mid-forties.

But that's not what he's thinking. What Red is thinking, as Pikachu twitches once and then lays still under his hand, is _No. Please no._

Red and Blue bury Pikachu the next day, in a little patch of earth out near Red's flower bed.

(Leaf is not there, but Red can feel her next to them all the same.)

* * *

><p>Three months later, Red gives up. He lets his body freeze, lets his heart stop and his eyes close, and flings his mind back into the past. Back to her smile.<p>

* * *

><p>Red is twenty and sitting in a cave. It is just past midnight, and the world is silent and still.<p>

Pikachu is there, curled up in the warmth of his arms. The rest of team is scattered around him, sleeping. He can hear their breath as they dream, and, if he listens closely, their heartbeats.

Blue says Red needs to come out, needs to face the world. Red doesn't understand. He is being a part of society, in his past and in his future. Just… not here. Not in this particular moment in time.

Slowly, Red's eyes droop shut. He falls asleep with his Pokémon by his side.

Red wants to stay here forever. In a way, he does.

* * *

><p>Red is sixteen, and he's throwing up in a bathroom stall. He's wearing a suit, the pressed fabric hot and scratchy against his skin. More than anything else, he wants to rip it off, run away and go back to chasing legendaries. Back to being the Champion. Back to being invincible.<p>

There's a squeaking of hinges and somebody else walks into the bathroom. Red curls up against the toilet, instinctively (and uselessly) trying to hide himself. The press would have a field day if anyone snapped a picture of him looking like this.

There's a knock on the door.

"Go away," Red tries to say, but his chest is too tight and his throat is too swollen and it comes out as a broken little gasp.

"It's only me," his guest says from the other side of the stall.

Red stands up, unlocks the stall door, and launches himself into Blue's arms like nothing else matters.

"Shh," Blue murmurs into his shoulder, and Red can tell from his voice that he's been crying too. It's horrible to think, but that makes it better somehow, knowing he's not the only one who's torn apart.

"I'm so useless," Red admits softly once he is able to speak.

"Me too," Blue says, carefully avoiding his eyes.

No, Red thinks, not you, but he doesn't know what to say.

Fifteen minutes later, once they both finally stop crying, Red and Blue leave the bathroom. They make it back to the funeral just in time to see Leaf being lowered into the ground.

_"I just want to see her again."_

(Goodbye, Red thinks, and leaves that memory behind.)


End file.
